Southpeak reclaim access rights to My Baby franchise

The US arm of Southpeak Interactive has won back the rights to publish Nobilis’s My Baby games, a series of terrifyingly popular baby simulations. That’s one down, but at least two more court battles in progress for the litigation-plagued publisher.

Gamasutra reports that Nobilis withdrew Southpeak’s rights to the My Baby series after accusing the latter of non-payment in July.

Lyon’s Commercial Court ruled Nobilis had no legal basis for terminating its deal, and returned publishing rights to Southpeak immediately.

European distributor CDV and Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive also made non-payment claims against Southpeak in 2010. Both cases were resolved, but a third from Timegate is still up in the air as the Section-8 developer pursues allegedly withheld royalty payments.

Over a million My Baby games have been sold in the US alone, and while the franchise’s origins are shrouded in mystery (by which I mean French), it appears to be developed by Dancing Dots, either an in-house or very closely contracted Nobilis studio.

The latest entry, My Baby 3 and Friends, was published by Majesco. Southpeak are still suing them over it.